We had a much larger turnout than expected all at the last minute, of course. So lots of folks were able to submit images before we could close off the registration. I think that’s a good thing though. The viewing audience got a chance to see a much larger body of work judged and evaluated.

Print Competition The Rest Of The Story

First of all, my sincere THANKS to the more than 10 volunteers who put in collectively over 50 hours of their time to pull off the technically complex and most exciting image competition ever!

We had people monitoring the event in Florida, Kentucky, and Cabo, Mexico. There were also a total of 10 devices - 4 computers for viewing, judging, and monitoring, 3 iPods for scoring, and 3 iPads for monitoring remotely – all were used to pull off the most technically complex print competition ever and to make it the success it was.

We had 45 photographers enter from 22 states around the country with one entry from Canada which made our competition an international event! Here are the top 10 images in order submitted for the event. Enjoy!

Here are a few of the comments from our “LIVE” studio audience:

“Its was great. I started competing this year and it was so much fun…" John V.

“I am learning SOOOO much. Thank you!” Cindy S.

“I enjoyed the presentations and the judges comments on the images. Thanks for all the hard work for this wonderful learning opportunity.” Chuck C.

“This is great! I think I'm going to look into the master photographer classes on PPA.” Mary D.

“This is the first time I've experienced anything like this. GOOD to hear/learn what the judges look for.” John D.

“…Thank you… Seeing the images and listening to the judges comments was invaluable and educational.” Jammie . G

“Judy and I really enjoyed the Webinar. We learned a great deal from reviewing the photos and then hearing the experts comments. We appreciated your hard work in support of photographers all over the globe.” Judy and Chuck H.

We have several viewers tuned in via our live webcast watching the entire competition “LIVE” as it happened. I was moderating the event and answering as many of the submitted questions as fast as I could.

What Makes A Great Image?

The Professional Photographers Of America have been conducting Print Competitions for many years. Judges go through rigorous training to learn how to distinguish a great image from one that is close to great. I was a print judge for many years and it is an exciting and extremely educational experience.

The judges are looking for 12 main aspects of an image and basing their score on that criteria. The Twelve elements listed below are in accordance to their importance:

You can read the long version right here. It goes into much great depth about each aspect of what the judges are looking for.

And The Winners Are…

We selected three winners from last Thursday’s competition. They are listed as follows:

Highest Collective Score for 6 Images: This award is the most difficult of all the awards a maker can receive. It demands extremely high quality and consistency across all 6 of the makers entries. Our winner this year is Jessica Edwards with a scoring total of 483, nearly an 81 average for all 6 of her images entered! Congrats! Jessica!

This award is always a crowd favorite. It goes to the maker of the image with the overall highest scoring image of the competition. Our winner for this competition goes to Eric Shalita for his image “Electric Arch” which scored a phenomenal 88 from the judges. This was also the judges favorite image too.

These are the top scoring images in each of the six categories. Each winner will receive a copy of my 2011 Success Collection.

Highest Scoring Artistic (Photoshop,etc.) Image: “Electric Arch”. Please see above. It was also the top scoring image in the competition.

Highest Scoring Landscape Image:

”Docked” by Jill Davidson scoring 85.

Highest Scoring Portrait Image:

“Old Boys Club” by Jonathon Burton, scoring 84

Highest Scoring Wedding Image:

“Rooftop Romance” by Rosemary Cundiff-Brown scoring 83

Highest Scoring Sports Image:

“Riding The Wave” by Peter Tucker scoring 82.

Highest Scoring Wildlife Image:

“Water Drops On Wings” by Amber Pulse scoring 81.

Congratulations to all our winners. Hope to see you at PhotoPro Expo 2012. We’re giving away $5,000 in prizes and awards next February!

Now For The Re-Broadcast Of The PhotoPro Network Image Competition and Review

Hit the PLAY button below and enjoy the images and judges comments one more time! Enjoy everybody!

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Hey gang, that’s it for me today. I’ve been at the computer too long these last two days with these lengthy posts. We’re hitting the sunshine early. I’ll plan to see you sometime tomorrow for another great post from the sunny shores of Mexico.

2 comments:

I enjoyed the recent opportunity to witness the image competition. The judges comments on each of the images provided background knowledge on their decision making process. As the image competition continued it was easier to anticipate what the judges would score each print. Later I examined some of my images (flipping the image) and could see how with some images this simple technique could improve the lock of the image. Thanks to all of you who had the courage to submit as well as any one else involved in the process

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David Ziser, an internationally renowned portrait and wedding photographer, has shared his knowledge with ten’s-of-thousands of photographers, in 5 languages, and in 14 countries worldwide.
Studio Photograph magazine has extolled..."Award winning photographer, David Ziser, is showing the world how to take wedding pictures." His "Digital WakeUp Call tour was acclaimed as one of the "best ever" seminars on digital photography.